Гарри Гаррисон - Montezuma’s Revenge

They faced each other like two gladiators in the arena, tensed for instant battle. Forward, forward, Stocker reluctantly abandoning his hold on the pocketed gun to grab the painting. There was a silent tug of war for a moment, each pulling on painting and case, then giving way, the exchange made.

“Good, good-by,” Robl said, pulling the bag to him as Stocker snatched in the painting. He dived for the open door of his car, D’Isernia climbing into the other, the Packard shooting forward in a cloud of dust while their legs were still protruding, its headlights sending yellow beams through the dusk. Stocker rushed to the safety of the car with the painting, his gun out now, as were all the others.

The crowd had dispersed, there seemed no danger, the Packard disappeared around a turn, the alert agents relaxed though their guns were still ready.

Lizveta Zlotnikova screamed loudly, again and again; the guns reappeared on the instant.

She had thrown back the cover and her light was on the picture.

“A fake!” she shouted. “A phony! a forgery!”

The dust cloud settled; the other car was gone.

“Schultz, turn the car around ram this fence what do you mean it is a fake?” Sones was shouting, his cool very definitely gone. Billy jumped into the car while the others huddled around Lizveta Zlotnikova who had the painting fiat on the ground and was kneeling by it with the flashlight.

“Look, so easy to see with all the covering cloth removed. ! scrape away the paint here, so, and it is obvious that a corner of the real painting was attached to this forgery. See where the edge of the original has been shaved down, then glued on. The whole thing is a fake. Not only that but a real art authority/ 5she blazed a glance in Tony’s direction, “would have seen at once that this is an inferior forgery.”

The events of the past few days suddenly became very, very clear to Tony. The entire slow build-up with all the suspense of foreign intrigue, the refusal to let a real expert examine the painting, the careful timing to enable him to witness the com-memoratory rites, the darkened room, the man in the wheel chair to get his mind off the things it should have been on. Then the doubtlessly well-rehearsed bit of acting, the artistic Italian, the barbarian German, the flash of the knife that removed almost all of the original fragment of painting for examination and authentication. They had been conned, fooled, deluded exceedingly well, all of them, in a highly professional manner.

A continuing sound penetrated his depressed aura of gloom, making itself known to all of them about the same time. They looked up, looked at the car, listened to the grind-grind-grind of the starter turning over and over with no result. The engine would not start.

“The light,” Sones growled, tearing it from Lizveta Zlotnikova’s hand and throwing open the hood. Inside, even to the unmechani-cal eye, things were not quite as they should be. Torn ends of wires gleamed, half of the cables to the spark plugs were pulled loose and hung in a tangle. Sones reached in and pulled out a hooked length of heavy metal rod, of the kind used to reinforce concrete. “While we were all looking the other way someone crawled under the front of the car and pulled the wires loose with this thing. Fix it, Schultz.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Treasury is not gonna like this.”

“No one likes it, Stocker.” Sones controlled his temper with an effort and rounded on Hawkin who raised his hands.

“Now don’t start on me, Sones. I’m no more to blame than anyone else here. We were conned, but good. So now we have to go after these people and get the money back.”

“Thu only way.”

It took Billy Schultz ten long minutes to jury rig enough of the wires so the engine would start, though at least two cylinders kept missing and banging, while only one headlight came on, and it was frozen in the low beam position.

“Go,” Sones ordered. This was, as were all of his recent orders, issued through tight-clenched teeth.

They went. The Cadillac tore through the thin strands of barbed wire and lumbered down the dirt track that twisted through the outskirts of the village, ending at the graveled shoulder of the highway.

“Which way?” Billy asked. There was no answer. Tony saw that there were people sitting outside the nearby house and he opened the door.

“I’ll ask them.”

Instead of running he forced himself into a slow stroll, feeling the daggers of the impatient eyes behind him burning into his back. But he could not rush; there is a different pace for all things in Mexico. As he drew close he saw the women and children withdraw within the mud-brick walls of the adobe house. Only the man remained, his face a dark blur under the wide brim of his hat, leaning against the pole that supported the roof.

“Good evening,” Tony said.

“Good evening.”

“It should be a pleasant night.”

“It usually is.”

“Cigarette?”

“It will be a pleasure.”

They lit the cigarettes and Tony pointed back down the they had come.

“There was a little accident there and the wire fence was torn near the bull ring. If I gave you money for its repair would you be so kind as to pass it on?”

“But why not.”

Tony paid him, then started away—only to call back over his shoulder.

“The other car that went by a few minutes ago, did you happen to notice in what direction it went?”

“I did. It went that way, toward the south.”

“Adios.”

“Adios.”

“Well?” Sones’s temper had not improved with the delay.

“South.”

“You are sure?”

“There is one way to find out.”

They rushed on through the night, tearing down the dim yellow column of the single headlight, dark shapes of cactus swirling by on each side. There was a figure ahead, a solitary hitchhiker who turned and jerked his thumb in anticipatory gesture. Billy swung out to go around him, not slowing.

“Stop the car!” Tony shouted and Billy hit the brakes L flex, sending them into a long squealing bucking slide.

“Explain, Hawkin, it had better be good.”

“That man, he’s their chauffeur.”

They burst out of the car, running as they hit the ground, weapons in their hands, Stacker even ready with a tear-gas grenade. Their prey stood silently, hands at his side as they surround him and the muzzles of guns prodded from all sides.

“I am simple driver,” he said solemnly. “Hired, perhaps because of my German nationality, to do driving. I do as I am told. I am told to leave car and walk back to town. I leave car and walk back to town.”

“The truth now, or else .. !”

“Let me have him for ten minutes!”

“There is sodium pentothal in the bag.”

Tony drew a reluctant Sones away from the seekers after truth. “I can make him talk,” he said.

“How?”

“Simple enough, if you must know. You see he is, well, my contact with the Israelis. If I found out anything about Robl I was to tell Heinrich here.”

“A Kraut!”

“He’s Jewish, a chemist. Let me get him aside where the others can’t hear.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Do we have a choice? Don’t forget the million ...” Soncs’s teeth could be clearly heard grating together.

“Do it, fast, do it.”

The flashlight was trained on them, guns clearly visible beneath it, as Tony took Heinrich over to the side of the road.

“Would you please tell me what is happening.”

“Just what I said, with the exception that I stopped your car. I was supposed to get off the road. They are on the run. They paid me off.”

“Do you know where they are going?”